Exploring the Tiaocha Ancient Trail (starts from Goldleaf Hill and ends at Bei-Ou Leisure Farm & Spa)

Written by Vivi, edited by TLAA

In the next day of our internship program, the officer guides us to explore the historical trail which is remained by the ancient. The name is “Tiaocha”. It is start from Goldleaf Hill Leisure farm and ends at Ping Wei or Bei-Ou Leisure Farm and Spa. The entire length of it is 1.3 km, and it counts about 845 steps and takes 30-40 minutes to walk on this trail. Before we start to explore the trail, we enjoy the view and facilities in Goldleaf Hill first.

Room in GoldLeaf-Hill

Children Swimming Pool

Homestay in Goldleaf-Hill

         This place has some room to rent to the visitors, and two big homestay. This place is convenient for the family. It also has restaurant and swimming pool as facilities. I thought that it must be very excite to swim in this hot summer, but unfortunately this swimming pool is just for children. L hehe. This place has a historical story about the name. We can find so many plants called “Fongshang” in this place. In which the leaves of the plant will fall in autumn. These leaves have a very pleasant smell and the color is like gold. That’s why the owner gives Goldleaf-Hill as a name of this leisure farm.

After that, we are ready to explore the trail. In ancient times, tea farmers of Lisiping would carry on a shoulder the tea sack they picked, passing along this trail to the Tea Association in which located in Goldleaf-Hill now. The stone steps of the trail and environment of its surrounding have been sorted out by Multiple Employment Promoting Project of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau and Council of Labor Affair, Taiwan. Along the trail, we can see a very beautifully landscape and the scenery of Daan River, Lao-Zhuang Xi, and Fengtian Township as well. Kinds of plants like beech, Formosan sugar palm, octopus tree, ring-cupped oak, ficus altissima, soap nut tree, machilus, tung oil tree, wax tree, staurochillus luchuensis, stenoloma chusana, Taiwan gordonia, china grass, India-charcoal trema, spicebush, swamp pine, fragarant maple, camphor tree, acacia, etc can be seen along the way. Beside the plants, we also meet chirping birds and buzzing insect. 

The way along the trail

The way along the trail 

The scenery from the trail

Beautiful  stone

After spend 40 minutes walking on the trail, we arrive in the top of the trail, which is in Bei- Ou Leisure Farm and Spa. But this place is now close, and only open in winter time. This place has hot spring from the mountain. The owner dip the ground until 1 km to get the spring, and the water temperature is about 30-40 Celcius Degree. Many tourist come into this place in winter.